# Chickenscratch



## Prairie Chicken (Dec 15, 2009)

obligatory self-deprecating comment about my art, please comfort me

I'm trying to get used to GIMP. It hasn't been easy, but practice makes perfect. There will be pogeyman art and original art in here, so please look at my things! Comments and crits are welcome.

*--STUFF--*
(Links to new pics also posted below)​
*Randomizer selected Aipom, so I drew Aipom:* (link)
I like to work big and then shrink down the image so my lineart comes out smoother. I didn't do this with Aipom. Welp.
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*Randomizer selected Victreebel, so I drew Victreebel:*(link)
I didn't realize it until I was drawing this pokemon that it was the worst RBY pokemon of them all. That's saying something--it was competing against Geodude and Tentacool.
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*Earlier I did an absol:* (link)
Absol's cool.
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*12/16/09, Duskull (smooth shading test):* (link)
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*3/4/10, Fishing Buddies:*
(link)


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## blazheirio889 (Dec 15, 2009)

B-b-b-but it's _Victreebel_. A gigantic floating pitcher plant! How much more awesome could it get?

*ahem*

Anyway, your art is pretty good. I love the expressions, and that Absol picture got a chuckle out of me. Lineart and shading are great, too. I've never tried GIMP personally; how is it?


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## Prairie Chicken (Dec 16, 2009)

I'm so sorry you feel that way about Victreebel. When you come to your senses, Carnivine will be more than happy to accept your praise. (Thank you for your comments, by the way.)

So long as you aren't expecting "Photoshop, But Free!", GIMP is all right. It's such a pain to get going, though. I had trouble from the beginning trying to get it to recognize my tablet, the zoom function is way too sensitive with the tablet pen, you _can't select multiple layers at once_ (UGH!), and I still can't get most of the selection tools to do what I want. Even if I wanted to, I still wouldn't touch the filters, since it takes so long to apply one to an image anyway.

But for freeware, it does what it needs to... I know/configured enough of the shortcuts to be productive. The lack of web optimization for images is also annoying, but thankfully Irfanview is still free and lovely.


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## blazheirio889 (Dec 16, 2009)

I vouch that pitcher plants are more awesome than venus fly traps. Oh hey- *snaps at a passing fly*

I don't use filters in Photoshop anyway, unless I'm making a sort of background, so I think I might give GIMP a spin sometime. Thanks.

And now that I'm not so busy, would you like some critique? Just checking because you said nothing about that in your first post and I don't want to get clobbered over the head and so on and so forth.


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## Prairie Chicken (Dec 16, 2009)

Sorry I didn't make that more clear. I'd appreciate any critique you have.


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## blazheirio889 (Dec 16, 2009)

I did a redline of your Aipom picture because I cannot for the life of me explain stuff in words, and using pictures is easier at any rate. If you don't like your work being redlined I apologize in advance.

Et voila.

I was surprised at how little there was to fix, actually. Just some very minor anatomy errors. You're well on your way already. I used the colour picker to check the colours you used to shade, and it appears you're great at picking out colours to shade as well. Really, there's not much to critique. You planning on trying smooth shading soon?


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## Prairie Chicken (Dec 16, 2009)

Oh, I love redlines! Thank you for taking the time to do one! 

There's something about the sharp borders of cel shading that really appeals to me, so I never gave smooth shading much thought. However, I am experimenting! I will try and use smooth shading on my next pokemon picture.


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## Prairie Chicken (Dec 17, 2009)

Randomizer chose Duskull, so I drew Duskull (now with smoother shading!): (link)

Messing with the Set Pen Pressure to Opacity mode was fun, but I still strongly prefer cel shading to smooth. I would have blended more and tried to play with more colors if using low opacity, large-sized brushes in GIMP wasn't such a pain in the ass.


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